Five Cheap Ways to Feel Good

The short, dark days of January are enough to make anyone feel rough. It always seems such a long month, too. The bills for Christmas fun always arrive before January’s payday can bail out the bank account!

Here are five cheap ways to take your mind off the misery…

Exercise

Anything that gets you out of your chair is a good thing—even housework, with all that bending and stretching. If you’ve got a dog, you’ve always got a good excuse to go out for a walk and when the weather’s bright and clear, there’s nothing like it. When my joints are working properly I run several kilometres before breakfast on alternate days, but to be honest that does require some investment. To prevent injury good running shoes are vital, and if you’ve got a bust, a properly-fitted sports bra. Neither comes cheap but both will last a long time if you look after them.

Meditation

I meditate for twenty minutes each morning, as recommended by Jack Canfield in his Success Principles. I learned how to meditate by using Headspace, which has a great selection of short courses, tutorials and animations. That started me off, but now I’ve established a routine it’s just a case of settling down somewhere I won’t be disturbed and taking a few deep breaths…

Feed the Birds

Watching birds is as restful as an aquarium, and a lot cheaper. The special foods from firms such as Haiths or CJWildlife provide the ideal things to feed, but if you’re careful you can do it for free by putting out household scraps. No meat (which might contain diseases which, while not affecting humans, could infect the wildlife you’re trying to attract) or white bread, as it’s about as good for birds as it is for us! A sprinkling of wholemeal breadcrumbs, cooked brown rice, chopped apple or grated cheese is okay. When my children were small they used to “help” make fat cakes by mixing dried fruit and cooked potato into melted lard (obviously, I was in charge of the hot stuff!). Once set, the mixture can be turned out onto the bird-table, like a cake. Make sure you put out clean water, too, for the birds to drink and bathe in. They need to do that even in winter, to keep their feathers in peak condition.

Look Out for Signs of Spring

This is one of the best tonics of all. When the sun came out today after a long run of miserable, dark, wet days I discovered polyanthus, a sheet of snowdrops, some hellebores and catkins all on display. Just getting outside felt good, and finding flowers (okay, maybe catkins aren’t strictly flowers!) made the spring seem a little bit closer. I wish you could smell this winter honeysuckle, which grows not far from my kitchen window. No wonder its Latin name is Lonicera Fragrantissima! Pollinators love it, too. On sunny days you can hear the hum of bees from metres away.

Seeing Stars

When I was a child, my father taught me the names of the stars and constellations he had learned in the days when he lived right out in the sticks, with no electric light. Light pollution makes the number of things in the sky visible to the naked eye far fewer than it was in Dad’s day, but it’s still a wonderfully relaxing thing to go outside on a clear, cold night, look up and wonder what was happening here on earth all those thousands of years ago when light left those distant objects. Much closer to home, the flashing green and red lights of aircraft passing overhead makes me wonder where they’re heading, and whether anybody up there us looking down on me, looking up at them!

What’s your favourite way of beating the January blues?